Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Mississippi State University. Department of Curriculum and Instruction. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 26, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Archbald Douglas, School of Education. Includes bibliographical references.

This research is concerned with the cognitive development of students in higher education. Specifically, it is recognised that the demands facing students are different to those previously encountered in secondary education. These demands include being able to master what Strohm Kitchener (1983) calls ill-structured problems and learning the groundrules of their academic disciplines. This is termed academic literacy. Current thought in academic development proposes that students need to be shown how to mobilise their cognitive processes to meet these demands. It is argued that this is best accomplished when such activities are integrated into the discipline itself as opposed to being an add-on process. Taking into account the social and dialectical nature of learning (Vygotsky, 1978), academic development and academic literacy are seen to best occur within the tutorial system. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the 1997 first-year Psychology tutorial programme at Rhodes University, Grahamstown to assess how academic literacy was being developed. A qualitative research approach was followed, guided by the ten stage evaluation model of education programmes (Jacobs, 1996) and an adapted version of the Context, Input, Process and Product approach to evaluation (Parlett and Hamilton cited in Calder, 1995, p.25). Using indepth interviews, data was gathered from eight first year students, seven staff members and one programme co-ordinator. Focus groups were used to gather data from nine tutors. Further data collection techniques included observation of tutor briefing sessions and tutorials as well as documentary research. Data was analysed using qualitative data analysis techniques (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996). The Psychology Department at Rhodes University aims to integrate the development of academic literacy into mainstream teaching at the first year level through its tutorial programme. The Department has conceptualised its understanding of academic development as the development of academic, vocational and professional literacy which is rather unique. Academic literacy is defined and conceptualised further in a list of pre-determined skills (reading, writing and general skills) to be developed incrementally. This conceptualisation of academic literacy tends to neglect to include the mobilisation of relevant cognitive processes explicitly and the implementation tends to remain implicit. A lack of tactical strategies to implement academic development is evidence of the difficulty in moving from the philosophical level of academic development to the practical level. The programme is perceived as disorganised and lacking in a co-ordinated or incremental development of the predetermined skills.

Approximately 80% of undergraduate students work during the course of their undergraduate studies. Ideally, student's on-campus employment would contribute to his or her learning and development. However, because student employment is typically approached as the fulfillment of job tasks rather than student development, higher education institutions miss critical opportunities for supporting student academic and social integration. This study reframes on-campus student employment as a developmental effort. Data in this qualitative study indicate that on-campus employment can offer opportunities for student development and academic and social integration, and that it can positively influence students' sense of mattering and overall satisfaction with their college experience. It highlights the importance of supervision in student employment and informs our understanding of the ways different types of jobs can influence students' experiences. Given that students with fewer economic resources often come from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds and are potentially more at-risk for not completing their studies, colleges and universities should reconfigure on-campus jobs as opportunities for both employment and academic success.

This dissertation sought to determine the effects of a buddy system on a student's self-concept, academic achievement, attrition rate, and congruence levels. The buddy system treatment randomly paired two students for the purposes of sharing ideas, working on assignments, getting to know each other, and supporting one another. The study included three randomly selected sections of pre-college level, developmental writing classes from the Brookhaven College of the Dallas County Community College District. Three other classes served as the control group, and one instructor taught all six sections of the course. Three instruments were used as measures of change: the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS), designed by William H. Fitts, measured self-concept levels; the Personality and Educational Environment Scale (PEES), created by Roger Boshier, measured congruence levels; and a written paragraph measured achievement levels in English. Attrition percentages were based on the number of students enrolled during the second week of class who were not present during the sixteenth week of class. To test for significance, an analysis of covariance procedure was used on the TSCS, PEES, and written paragraph results, and a test for the difference between proportions for independent groups was used on the attrition percentages. The class sections were nested under either the experimental or the control group to identify significant differences between class sections. On the TSCS, a significance of .96 among sections and .48 between groups indicated no significant change had occurred in self-concept levels. For the PEES, a significance of .30 among sections and .75 between groups indicated no change had occurred in congruence levels. Finally, on the paragraph assessment, a significance of .87 among sections and .31 between groups showed no change had occurred in achievement levels. However, the test for significance of the difference between attrition percentages revealed that the buddy system treatment was an effective method of retention.

The purpose of this study was to examine the voices of Latino/a Senior Student Affairs Officers (SSAOs) in terms of described challenges in becoming a SSAO and how the intersection of race influences their lived experiences as SSAOs at selected public and private two- and four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. Latino/a SSAOs are dramatically underrepresented in American colleges and universities. The lived experiences of this unique group have been ignored in existing empirical literature. A particular focus of this research was to gain a better understanding of how Latino/a SSAOs experience and respond to what they perceive as racism, if any, and/or other forms of discrimination during this experience. The theoretical lens used in this research study was Critical Race Theory (CRT). / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis investigates student-identified benefits of residential learning communities. It is a qualitative study involving matriculates living on campus who participate in Freshman Connections at Ball State University. Past assessment of the program includes faculty, residence hall director, and student surveys investigating their experiences and feedback. The literature reflects creation and implementation of living and learning communities, benefits for students, faculty and universities, and retention outcomes. The researcher used focus groups in the research design and analyzed the data by extracting relevant themes. The findings are discussed within the following themes: student knowledge of the Freshman Connections program; adjustment to Ball State University, and college, academic and interpersonal benefits of learning communities; and relationships among students and faculty. The conclusion includes discussion of how student adjustment to Ball State University and college was affected by assignment of students to the same courses and residence hall. Academic relationships among faculty and students are also explored along with discussion concerning students' overall experience in the Freshman Connections program. Finally, suggestions for further research are presented. / Department of Educational Leadership

This study is contextualised within the field of post-graduate, continuing teacher education, and the vibrant and demanding policy context that has characterised higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. Situated within a module specifically designed to address what is commonly understood to be the academic literacy development needs of students in the Bachelor of Education Honours programme at the former University of Natal, it aims to unveil the lived experiences of students taking this module. The module, Reading and Writing Academic Texts (RWAT), was developed in direct response to academics’ call that something be done about the ‘problem’ of students’ reading and writing proficiency. As a core, compulsory module, RWAT was informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and drew on Genre Theory for its conceptual and theoretical framework. It foregrounded the genre of the academic argument as the key academic literacy that was taught. The motivation for this study came from my own increasing concern that the theoretical and conceptual framework we had adopted for the module was emerging as an inherently limiting and formulaic model of literacy, and was resulting in students exiting the module with little or no ‘critical’ perspective on any aspect of literacy as social practice. I was also keen, in a climate of increasing de-personalisation and the massification of education, to reinstate the personal. Thus, I chose to focus on individual lives, and through an exploration of a small group of participants’ ‘lived’ experiences of the RWAT module, ascertain what it is like to acquire an academic literacy. The key research question is, therefore: What is it like to acquire an academic literacy? The secondary research question is: How is this experience influenced by the mode of delivery in which it occurs? For its conceptual and theoretical framing, this study draws on social literacy theory and phenomenology, the latter as both a philosophy and a methodology. However, although the study has drawn significantly on the phenomenological tradition for inspiration and direction, it has not done so uncritically. Thus, the study engages with phenomenology-as-philosophy in great depth before turning to phenomenology-as-methodology, in order to arrive at a point where the methods and procedures applied in it, are justified. The main findings of the study suggest that, despite the RWAT module espousing an ideological model (Street, 1984) of literacy in its learning materials and readings, participants came very much closer to experiencing an autonomous model of literacy (Street, 1984). The data shows that the RWAT module was largely inadequate to the task of inducting participants into the ‘situated practices’ and ‘situated meanings’ of the Discourse of Genre Theory and/or the academy, hence the many ‘lived’ difficulties participants experienced. The data also highlights the ease with which an autonomous model of literacy can come to govern practice and student experience even when curriculum intention is underpinned by an ideological position on literacy as social practice. Finally, the study suggests that the research community in South Africa, characterised as it is by such diversity, would be enriched by more studies derived from phenomenology, and a continuing engagement with phenomenology-as-a-movement in order to both challenge and expand its existing framework.

Using Margaret Archer’s social realist methodology, this study critically examines the construction of the tutorial system in several departments and faculties at the Auckland Park campus of the University of Johannesburg. The purpose of the study is to investigate the extent to which tutorials support the acquisition of programme and disciplinary epistemologies. Social realism calls for analytical dualism of ‘the people’ (agents) from ‘the parts’ (structure and culture). This requires the separate consideration of structures (social systems, rules, roles, practices, policies, institutions, and organisational structures like committees, units, departments, faculties), culture (ideologies, theories, beliefs and values as evidenced in discourses), and agency (people and their ability to act within and upon their own world in terms of their social roles and positions dependent on their ability to activate their emergent properties and powers). Through this investigation, an understanding was gained into how the emergent properties and powers contained within the material, ideational and agential elements helped to generate certain events and practices in the tutorial system. These generative mechanisms were examined to explore whether they enabled or constrained the construction of the tutorial system to provide epistemological access. The study shows that while many official policy documents construct the tutorial system as being an intervention to support academic success, particularly for first-years, there are some tensions within the document discourses, where, on the one hand, student success is constructed in terms of throughput numbers, or, on the other hand, as being about becoming a particular kind of person who is able to access and add to powerful knowledge. Furthermore, the study found that policies are not being consistently implemented. While certain key agents and actors, in the form of management, academics and tutors, were found to be able to overcome constraints and introduce innovative ways of enhancing access to target epistemologies, there is a need for consideration of structural and cultural constraints. For example, structures in the form of funding, venues and timetabling were found to constrain the tutorial system as did some of the discourses in the cultural domain: for example, in the form of certain dominant discourses around teaching and learning, beliefs about the purpose of the tutorial and the relationship between academics and the tutorial system. The study also found that the ontological aspects of ‘learning to be’ were not fore-grounded to any great extent in the ways in which the tutorial system was constructed. There needs to be more consideration of the ontological as well as the epistemological aspects of first-year study so as to take cognisance of the different learning needs of an increasingly diverse student body and to encourage the development of the student agency necessary for a deep engagement with the disciplinary epistemologies.